


The Shadow Assassin

by courtingstars (FallingSilver)



Series: KagaKuro Week 2016 [1]
Category: Kuroko no Basuke | Kuroko's Basketball
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fantasy, First Meetings, Japanese Culture, M/M, Magic-Users, Sexual Tension If You Squint Really Hard, Shadow Mark AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-22
Updated: 2016-10-22
Packaged: 2018-08-23 22:55:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,176
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8346010
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FallingSilver/pseuds/courtingstars
Summary: Kagami Taiga is a warrior, in a feudal kingdom where the kanji characters written on people’s bodies can give them magical powers. One day, he meets an assassin who moves like a shadow, who politely threatens to kill him. [Shadow Mark AU]





	

**Author's Note:**

> It's KagaKuro Week [over on Tumblr](http://kagakurominievents.tumblr.com)! Today's theme is Firsts/Meeting. I love fantasy AUs, but for some reason I haven’t the chance to write a KnB one yet. So here's a scene I've been dying to write, from a fantasy story I started brainstorming for fun last year. (For now it's called "The Shadow Mark.") It shows how Kagami and Kuroko meet.
> 
> (To readers of my other fics: Thank you for your patience while waiting for updates. Real life has been unexpectedly stressful, but I hope to have new chapters up soon.)

Any minute now, Kagami was going to burst into flames.

Well, it felt that way. Sweat poured down his face, and slicked his back. Kagami wasn’t sure he bought all that “destined warrior of fire” garbage the Seirin rebels kept spewing at him. But whatever magic was kindling in the kanji above his heart was hot as hell.

He gripped his chest, cinching his hitatare robe between his fingers. Maybe it was a mistake to remove his fetter. His master had always warned him not to take that heavy iron brace off his chest.

She was gone, though, and his sworn brother Himuro was missing. If Kagami was going to find him, he needed all the magic he could get.

Kagami still didn’t know if he would take the rebels up on their offer to train him… They claimed they could help him find Himuro, but they obviously had ulterior motives. Either way, he decided, the brace was just holding him back.

He trudged through the underbrush. Even here, in the cool mountain air, Kagami felt like his skin was burning. He passed beneath a tree, and glimpsed something bright. He tensed, reaching for his sword—only to realize he had just seen his own hand. In the shade, his skin glowed. The fragile light was as red as a smoldering ember.

Kagami heaved a breath. So his magic, whatever it was, was strong enough that he had an aura now. Maybe the rebels were right. So much for sneaking up on people. (Not that he’d ever been very skilled at it.)

He shook his head, suddenly dizzy. The pine trees around him seemed to waver and dance. This fever was getting ridiculous.

Following a splashing sound, he came upon a stream. He traced the stream further down, to where it widened into a pool.

Kagami set his sword aside, and stripped out of his robes. He plunged into the cold water. He could have sworn he saw steam rising around him, but he was too busy dunking his head beneath the water’s surface to look closely. He sighed with relief. Once he had finally cooled his head, he came up for air.

A shadow shifted, up in the branches of the overhanging trees. Kagami stared. There was no one there—but the shadow had definitely moved. Except there was no wind right now.

The Seirin rebels had said their mountain hideout had magic wards to keep out intruders. But Kagami didn’t know how far the wards went.

Uneasy, Kagami emerged from the pool. He slipped on his hakama trousers, and reached for his sword…

A blade pressed lightly against his throat.

“Don’t move, please,” a soft voice said beside his ear.

Even with such delicate pressure, the blade stung as it nipped into Kagami’s skin. That damn thing was _sharp_. And no matter how he angled his head, Kagami couldn’t see a knife at his throat, or the hand that held it.

Those were Kagami’s first thoughts. His next thought was…

What kind of unbalanced killer bothers to say something like _please_?

“Would you be so kind as to kneel?” the voice said. So it wasn’t just some one-off. This guy talked too politely. Almost like an aristocrat or something.

Kagami scowled, as he lowered himself to his knees. Something cool slid across his collarbone—a slender arm, holding him in place from behind. He still couldn’t see anything. This was giving him the creeps.

“What the hell do you want?” Fancy speech or not, Kagami figured the guy was some mountain bandit. Probably after his sword or something.

What the bandit actually said was the last thing he expected.

“You’re going to take me to your rebel friends,” he said, in his quiet, feathery voice. “The Seirin exiles. I know you’ve made an alliance with them.”

“Like hell.” Kagami grunted. “I never agreed to anything—”

The knife traced along the tendons in Kagami’s neck. “Nevertheless, you will take me to them. Or I won’t hesitate to kill you.”

Kagami’s heart raced. This was either exciting or incredibly awkward, he couldn’t decide which. Here he was half naked, with some invisible guy pressed up against his back, and a blade to his throat.

It had been a while since he had been this cornered, he thought with a dark laugh.

“Is that so?” He growled, as the kanji on his bare chest throbbed with heat. “How about you make it a fair fight, coward? Let me have my sword, and we’ll see who kills who.”

“You may have it, if you like,” the bandit said, to Kagami’s astonishment. “It won’t matter.”

An unseen hand pushed him forward. Kagami lunged for his sword, and unsheathed it in a single, powerful motion. He whirled around, with the blade out before him—only to be met with nothing but the empty clearing.

“Running away?” he barked out, as he scanned the trees. “You really are a coward.”

“Who exactly is running?” The voice was so close it made Kagami start.

There was an odd shimmer in the air. Suddenly, a young man was standing before Kagami. He was smaller and slighter, clothed all in black. He had the strangest hair—a shade of blue so light it was almost white. He looked pale, unearthly. Like some kind of apparition.

Then, just like that, he disappeared from sight.

Chills flooded down Kagami’s back. This wasn’t just a trick of the eye.

This was some kind of magic.

His breath raked his throat. He tightened his grip on his sword, and forced himself to concentrate.

All right, so this bandit—or whatever he was—could make himself literally invisible. Kagami had never heard of magic like that. But no one’s magic was so strong that it could make him actually _disappear_.

Kagami just had to sense the guy coming. Hear him, smell him… Kagami had sharpened his senses over his years of training, so he could battle multiple opponents at once. This was going to be easy.

Except Kagami didn’t sense a damned thing, before a blow struck him soundly behind the knee. Then he was on the ground again, his sword arm pinned behind his back, and his own blade was at his throat.

Desperate, Kagami tried to use his magic. The Seirin rebels said he had burned somebody, down in the city… He tried to focus on the rising heat inside his body. To use it, somehow. But nothing happened.

He could feel the bandit’s arms around him. The guy was so close now that Kagami heard the whisper-soft sound of his breathing—but even now, Kagami couldn’t see him or sense him at all. Almost like his body wasn’t entirely solid.

Like a phantom.

“Do you understand yet?” the bandit murmured. “We can do this as many times as you like. The result will be the same.”

Kagami swallowed. His voice came out in a rasp. “What in the hell _are_ you?”

The clearing was silent, apart from a faint breeze that shook the treetops.

“I am a shadow,” the bandit said. “I have no wish to kill you. Now promise me that you will do as I’ve asked.”

Kagami’s shoulders slackened.

“All right,” he muttered. “I swear.”

The bandit drew the sword away from Kagami’s throat. He stepped back, fully visible now. He kept Kagami’s blade poised in front of him. Deftly enough that it was obvious he had been trained to use all sorts of weapons. Kagami looked him over, but he couldn’t see signs of any kanji. (No surprise, since his dark clothes covered him from neck to toe, except for his hands.)

Kagami was sure by now that the guy wasn’t some random bandit. More like a practiced killer. Half shadow, half assassin.

… And why did that sound kind of familiar?

Kagami snatched up his robes. He hurried to wrap the rough layers of cloth around his body. He glanced back as he tied his belt, but the assassin showed no reaction. His stare was intent, unblinking—but it was also weirdly expressionless. Dark shadows ringed his blue eyes. He didn’t seem to care whether Kagami was bare-chested or clothed.

For some reason, though, Kagami was blushing anyway. It was just the fever, he told himself.

The pale-haired assassin urged him forward. He still had Kagami’s sword, much to Kagami’s irritation. Kagami was tempted to ask for it back, but he knew how that would go. Not that he could blame the guy for being smart.

Stiffly, Kagami led the way up the path toward Seirin’s hideout. They walked along in silence, not exchanging a word. Kagami still couldn’t sense his captor, or hear his footsteps at all. Kagami’s large feet, meanwhile, crashed through the underbrush. They made noise no matter what he did.

He had heard of assassins who trained to move without a sound. But this was ridiculous.

Kagami glanced skyward. The sun was at its highest, spilling light in beams through the trees. A muffled noise sounded behind him. Like a cough.

Kagami turned—and froze. The ghostly assassin was huddled on the ground. He cupped his mouth with his small, pale hand. He coughed again, then collapsed in a heap on the forest floor.

Kagami stood motionless. Unsure if he should escape while he had the chance, or try to get his sword back. It lay tucked beneath the assassin’s chest. He inched forward, and knelt to try to tug the blade free.

The assassin coughed again, weakly. Kagami flinched away—and saw the blood that blotted the assassin’s lips. His eyes were blank. Glazed over.

“Hey. What’s wrong with you?” Kagami’s voice shook. This kept getting stranger.

“It’s nothing,” the assassin wheezed. He gripped Kagami’s sword tightly. “Stay back, please, or I’ll—”

He collapsed into another coughing fit, and his whole body convulsed. He clutched his stomach and dropped the sword, as more blood spattered across the ground. In that moment, Kagami saw the weirdest thing he had ever seen. (Which was saying something, given the events of the past few days.)

The assassin’s hand _flickered_. Like one minute it was there, and the next it was fading from sight.

Kagami’s pulse hammered. There was something really wrong with this guy.

He grabbed his sword, and turned to run. Maybe all the way down the mountain. Just to get away from this bizarre stranger. Not to mention the gang of Seirin misfits he had just met, with their delusions of grandeur, and their longstanding grudge against the Teikou Emperor…

All Kagami wanted was to find Himuro. Not get mixed up in some three-way battle for the Empire of the Sun.

Then for some reason, Kagami looked back again. The assassin wasn’t coughing anymore. Just lying on the ground, with his large eyes shut. When he was lying there like that, he didn’t look dangerous at all. More like a helpless kid. He couldn’t have been any older than Kagami.

Kagami heaved a sigh. The whole thing was stupid. He should just leave this strange guy alone. He was obviously trouble. But…

“All right, come on.” He knelt beside the assassin. “I’ll take you to the rebels. Don't know how friendly they’ll be, when they hear about the stunt you pulled. But that’s your problem.”

There was a pause. The assassin didn’t move.

“But you can’t die on me,” Kagami added, nudging his shoulder. “Or try to kill me. Got it?”

Finally the assassin whispered, “Yes.”

Kagami sighed again, and rolled him onto his back. The assassin blinked slowly. Kagami sheathed his sword, as he tried to decide how best to carry him.

The assassin raised his hand. He touched it to Kagami’s chest. Kagami was about to ask what he was doing, when he jerked his small hand back again.

The assassin stared up at Kagami, with half-open eyes. Now that they were so close, Kagami couldn’t help noticing that this guy had a weirdly pretty face. Angelic, almost. His heart gave an odd lurch.

“So warm...” The assassin’s trembling voice was hardly even a whisper now. “You shine just like them.”

Kagami gave a start. Who in the hell was _them_?

The assassin’s head lolled to one side. Kagami hurried to heft the smaller man into his arms. He wasn’t surprised to find he weighed about as much as a bag of feathers. The assassin moaned, as Kagami slung him over one shoulder and carried him up the mountainside.

It wouldn’t be long before Kagami learned the assassin’s name was Kuroko Tetsuya. That he belonged to the infamous Kiseki Court, one of the six sworn companions of the Red Emperor’s son. His existence was a rumor, whispered in legends throughout the empire. And he carried a forbidden mark on his body, a cursed kanji that was slowly destroying him.

But for the moment, Kagami didn’t know any of this.

Still, somewhere deep down, he could sense that his choice to help this stranger was about to change the course of his fate, more than he could imagine.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! If you’d like to know more about this AU, you can check out my Tumblr post [here](http://courtingstars.tumblr.com/post/152176459337/about-the-shadow-mark-au). If I ever get the chance to write the whole story, this scene will probably reappear in that fic. (Minus some of the exposition!)


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